136GB capacity on 250GIG HDD - sorry long text...

[WhaleRider]

Hi all!
Just discovered this site through another forum. Many has been written since sp2 for xp came out regarding the limited hdd capacity above 120GB, anyway, here I go:

1. One of my pc’s is a gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Rev.1. Factory Bios was F6, with Raid
Enabled. Two weeks ago I bought a Seage Sata II 250 Gig HD: jumper on 1.5 GB/s
and Sata cable properly connected to mobo. Bios detected 248 GIG, which was
expected.
2. After some initial problems in which I had to disable RAID I managed to install xp
sp2, but HD capacity was 136GB…also on Bios now suddenly. My 2nd IDE drive
was disconnected btw.
3. I formatted sata drive through IDE drive on that mobo (Explorer/Format).
4. I realized that the last bios update F11 disabled the RAID. Managed to update
bios and all looked ok. But unfortunately not, Bios still didn’t recognize full
capacity.
5. I said to myself, ok, if my other pc has a 320 Gig sata drive properly partitioned, it should detect my
250 gig Seagate, right? But it did not.
6. I installed Partition Magic on 2nd pc, but still same capacity.
7. I formatted then SATA drive over my 2nd pc through Partition Magic tool. Nothing.
8. Anyway, installed again xp sp2 on the “handicapped” drive and I still have that issue.

Now…I tried that DiscWizard Tool from Seagate, but it did not help at all.
I have to say that Partition Magic (on the properties Tab of the drive) detects 248,452 MB as Total Physical something…so there it is my beloved ghost data somehow….
The 48bit lba tool also said that everything is enabled…sigh…

I still don’t have tried out the “capacity restore tool” from HDD Guru…this seems like my last chance to make this hdd working at full functionality.

Sorry if I wrote too much, but I deemed it necessary to explain what I did in case someone wants to ask what I did to my drive 

Any hint or suggestion is very welcome,
Thank you for reading me,
Best regards,
Whalerider

[pepe]

Hi,

try MHDD and see if the HPA 'lamp' lights up when detecting your drive.
See MHDD docs for more info.

regards,
pepe

[Dmitry Postrigan]

A complete guide about hard disk capacity issues:
http://blog.atola.com/restoring-factory ... -capacity/

[WhaleRider]

Thanx for the hint Pepe and Maysoft
That MHDD tool seems quite complicated and I'm a neophyte regarding drives. If it goes deeper than the usual Format,partition I can get nervous hehehe. I'll give it a try though if nothing else happens.
I'm pretty sure that the rest of the drive must be there somehow if I could see it in the beginning. Maybe the drive broke while installation, one disc not turning whatever... I did nothing which I had not done before.
But if it fails I doubt that the shop where I got it will exchange it once xp has been installed several times.
I maybe should also check if a firmware upgrade maybe solves something...
We'll see
Best regards,
WR

[Dmitry Postrigan]

WhaleRider, ummm... the guide I mentioned above includes a windows tool with only one button "Recover capacity". Not very complicated

[WhaleRider]

YES ! It worked Capacity restore stool is an amazing tool, really. A really big thank you for the creator of this software. I have 104 Gig back Keep up the good work with such amazing tools! Again, thank you, gracias, danke, merci, tack !
Best regards,
Whalerider